A Dallas homeowner is out thousands of dollars as a result of mistakes made by his home appraiser years earlier.
Chris Bruning said he relied on a 2007 home appraisal orchestrated by his mortgage company before buying the house. The appraisal clearly noted that the property was 2.2 acres with three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a value set at $295,000. Bruning said he wound up paying an additional $5,000 to get the deal done.
"It wasn't the house, it was the land,” Bruning told FOX-4 News, referring to the wooded backyard. “It was this place that got me.”
In 2010, when he looked into selling his home, Bruning discovered a series of mistakes in the initial appraisal.
“The survey was very accurate regarding 2.2 acres, but the survey didn’t study the quality of the land,” he said.
The back of the property is heavily wooded and adjacent to a large pit on his neighbor’s property. So, only 1.4 acres are fully useable. The rest has “diminished site utility.”
Bruning discovered more bad news in that his three-bedroom home wasn’t technically three bedrooms at all. The third bedroom, an add-on by the previous owner, is only accessible through the master bedroom or from outside the house, making it functionally obsolete.
Bruning ordered an appraisal review and subsequently learned that his property should have been appraised as a two-bedroom, 1.4-acre home with .8 diminished site utility, while also learning that the home should have been valued at $210,000.
The homeowner estimates losing $300,000, based on the property value and the increased tax value he paid for years before discovering the appraisal errors. Bruning filed formal complaints against the appraiser and his supervisor to the Texas Appraiser Licensing and Certification Board, which issued each individual a non-disciplinary warning and four hours of mentorship.